{"product_id":"the-smoke-of-satan-conservative-and-traditionalist-dissent-in-contemporary-american-catholicism","title":"The Smoke of Satan: Conservative and Traditionalist Dissent in Contemporary American Catholicism","description":"\u003cp\u003eAt the site of the Vatican Pavilion at the old Worlds Fair grounds in Queens  New York  where the late Veronica Lueken for years came to receive messages from the Blessed Virgin Mary  her followers still gather with apocalyptic expectancy before a portable statue of the Virgin. They are convinced that virtually the entire world  including the great majority of Catholics  will soon perish in a horrible chastisement  and that they alone will be saved. In the theological underground of American Catholicism  mostly hidden from public view  the followers of Veronica are just a few among the many who regard both the broader society and the broader church as irredeemably corrupt. Now  Michael Cuneos The Smoke of Satan brings these groups vividly to life  shedding valuable light on the current state of Catholicism in North America--and  more generally  on religion in our society.  Images on television and in the popular media have made the Christian right a household concept--but what that usually means is the Protestant Christian right. Cuneos insightful  provocative study highlights the equally vigorous though less well-known Catholic counterpart. Ranging from the Marianists  such as the followers of \"Blessed Veronica\" of Bayside  to picketers at abortion clinics across the United States and Canada (militant lay Catholics who believe that \"public witness\" is a vocational enterprise of the highest order  one which the vast majority of bishops  priests  and nuns are too lacking in faith and nerve to perform themselves); from separatists who believe that even Rome itself has fallen and that true Catholics should withdraw and form alternate communities  to Latin Mass advocates who believe the reforms of Vatican II are the work of Satan himself; these American Catholics are united by a common conviction: in the space of just three decades  the mainstream Catholic church in the United States and elsewhere has fallen into alarming decline  and the task of preserving authentic Catholicism (and thus Christianity itself) from outright extinction has fallen to small bands of the truly faithful. As Cuneo draws striking portraits of these faithful few  he also provides some fascinating asides on contemporary issues  including an innovative analysis of the ideological relationship of right-wing Catholic groups with the militia movement and a provocative assessment of militant Catholic pro-life activism.  In 1972  speaking in the aftermath of Vatican II  Pope Paul VI said \"the smoke of Satan has entered by some crack into the temple of God.\" In this first full-scale account of Roman Catholic fundamentalism  Cuneo details what these dissenters believe the \"smoke of Satan\" to be  and what they plan to do to halt its spread. Cuneos profiles of these right-wing groups and the various strategies they have adopted in attempting to carry out this task makes for one of the most fascinating stories in contemporary American religion.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44964833067061,"sku":"ByrdShop_0195113500","price":110.04,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780195113501.jpg?v=1770481944","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/the-smoke-of-satan-conservative-and-traditionalist-dissent-in-contemporary-american-catholicism","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}